Ike Nnachi, Abakaliki
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was unable to declare the result of the governorship election for Ebonyi State on Sunday.
It shifted the collation to 10 am Monday.
Resident Electoral Commissioner, Pauline Onyeka announced this at around 6:30pm.
She said the reason for the shift was due to inability of the Electoral officers of the remaining Íshíelu Local Government Area to compute their results accurately.
She said the commission has set up a review committee to review the result of the local government.
She said the committee will use the results from INEC Result Election Portal(IREV) to carry out the review.
According to her: “If they result from IREV and what is obtained in the result sheets from the local government do not tally, the results from the local government will be cancelled.”
However, with 12 out of the 13 local governments areas results already declared, governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Francis Nwifuri, is in the lead and set to win the governorship election in the state.
Mr Nwifuru, who is Speaker of Ebonyi State House of Assembly is leading in the results so far announced with candidate of the People’s Democratic Party(PDP), Ifeanyi Odii trailing in second place with a wide margin.
Mr Odii so far has won only his Onicha Local Government Area while Mr Nwifuru has won 9 local government areas.
The PDP candidate, Mr Odii got over 15503 in Onicha while Mr Nwifuru polled 5140 in that local government area.
That result was easily wiped out by Mr Nwifuru in his Izzi local government area where he got 48481 votes while Mr Odii garnered just 1429 votes.
Mr Nwifuru also lost in Ezza South and Ezza North local governments where he came second to APGA candidate, Bernard Odoh.
Only Ishielu Local Government is yet to be declared before the final declaration of the winner.
That local government has been projected to be won by Mr Nwifuru
The collation exercise is being presided over by the State Returning Officer and Vice Chancellor of University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), Prof Charles Igwe.
